Easiest Tanks in War Within

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/ @marcelianflame
So which is the easiest tanks war within? Do we factor just the rotations here? How about the tanks hero talents and reworks. After we’ve played and tested all tanks in the new expansion, we’ve come to some conclusions and honestly involves all of these plus a lot more. War tank tier list from the easiest to the hardest, let’s go!
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[@MarcelianOnline]

Check our second channel👇🏽 www.youtube.com/@MarcelianFlame

[@richard_n]

I find Brewmaster pretty easy to play if you take a lot of the passive talents. You do great damage, so you don't often lose aggro, and with Stagger you never get one shot, so you have time to heal and cleanse off that delayed damage. Plus it's super fun. I feel Prot Pally is harder to play with all the stupid CDs. The rest of your picks are pretty much right on.

[@banadona]

I main Brew since MoP so I don't really find it that hard but I heard a lot of my friends that tried it tell me that it's super hard and feels like paper.

[@Nyeusi]

This is just objectively wrong. You will get one shot as a brew if you don’t manage the stagger mechanic correctly and time everything right. They’re similar to blood dk if you don’t heart strike at the right time.

[@SamCastaneda87]

​@@Nyeusi That's used to be the case but it's not true anymore, Shuffle activates automatically when using Keg Smash, Spining Crane Kick, or Blackout Kick so just by doing your normal rotation (which has also been simplified) you automatically "manage" stagger, then Brew also has Ox Stance now which automatically increses it even further when you take a large hit, on top of all that there's Elixir of Determination which atutomatically triggers at 40% health and has a very low internal CD.. TLDR: Do your normal rotation, purify when stagger gets high or every few seconds otherwise, fill in with celestial brew.. Only real defensive CDs to manage are fortifying brew and Dampen, but mostly everything else is automatic. Even if you had no idea a large hit was coming you are not being one shot as long as you have done your basic rotation correctly, and you can just purify after. Brew is way less reliant on Defensive CD or having to proactively use something to mittigate the hit than most tanks, Prot Pally for example just falls over unless they pop a defensive AND stand in coscecration AND has Shield of the righteus up (which unlike stagger is not 100% uptime, much less early on at low haste levels)

[@Darkmatter833]

Brew gang!

[@jeankirchstein2552]

​@@SamCastaneda87that sounds so freaking awesome I want to main a monk in TWW but I couldn't really understand the changes everyone was talking about the way you describe it sounds perfect I hope it stays that way upon release

[@sodawow1602]

In low keys blood dk probably the easiest, start doing higher and instantly becomes the hardest.

[@FallenSun210]

Totally agree with this.

[@mynameisandycook1]

not anymore after today's changes.

[@sodawow1602]

@@mynameisandycook1 😂😂

[@PixelCreep]

Will there be a tierlist for melee dps? I want an Alt that I can log to just zugzug when not playing Warlock

[@Ray5600]

Unless TWW changes things from how they are now, BDK is not an easy tank to play. Properly managing Your Bone Shield stacks or Runic Power makes all the difference between being a slightly less squishy DPS and being nearly unkillable.

[@uMAtiQ]

specially if you know how to rotate your defensives. Many BDK's feel extremely squishy because they don't know how to rotate their cd's

[@tabunga4669]

As a pally if you keep enough runic power you can keep healing yourself. It's kinda the same. Just manage cooldowns and you'll be ok

[@colslaughter3734]

I’m excited to see an easiness tier list for healers!

[@MasonC2K]

As a Prot War main for years, I have never found Prot hard at all. The only problem I've ever had with Prot War is that most incarnations suck against magic damage. I do agree the BM Monk is hardest. I felt like I needed a PHD to properly use stagger.

[@sabahftw]

Do you have a video about your video settings, I run the game at the highest settings and your game looks so much better.

[@MarcelianOnline]

We don't know, but you can hop on stream and we can chat :)

[@mura-moto]

Check out quazii - he has a vid that shows how you can get super crisp graphics while keeping high fps and the like

[@dal3553]

Always maintain. The skill in bear is the control in Dungeons. A roots here, an off heal there, some movement speed. It all adds up to help the DPS and heals. Not as big of a fan in raid, solid, but less to do.

[@wulfknightz9526]

now just need melee video doing same thing! figuring out what specs a bunch of my alt army will have since i like easy and fun on alts

[@Arkael1110]

I'll give it a shot! Easiest: Ret, Frost, Fury Easy: Assassination, Arms Medium: Survival, Windwalker, Havoc Hard: Subtlety, Outlaw Hardest: Unholy, Enhancement, Feral

[@gregjross852]

This sounds pretty accurate tbh lol

[@jinks_hates_things]

@@Arkael1110now do ranged dps and healers 😅

[@Arkael1110]

@@jinks_hates_things healers Easy: Holy Priest, Resto Shaman Medium: MW, Pres, Resto Druid Hard: Holy Paladin, Disc Priest I don't play all the ranged specs so I can't do that one :)

[@wulfknightz9526]

@@jinks_hates_things ranged got a video

[@tommyheaver6793]

great video! Might make me choose tank next expac

[@MarcelianOnline]

You should!

[@KiaStout]

From what I've seen, then bear can be harder or easier depending on the hero talent you choose. Druid of the claw seems to add a fair bit more complexity.

[@tabunga4669]

Druid of the claw? I'm playing a guardian druid. What's this claw you speak of?

[@KiaStout]

@tabunga4669 in tww we are getting hero talents. Guardian can choose between druid of the claw and elunes chosen.

[@tabunga4669]

@KiaStout ah so I guess elunes choice is a magic dps choice?

[@KiaStout]

@tabunga4669 it buffs moonfire and lunar beam. There is no big change in rotation, but you should take lunar beam. Druid of the claw buffs changing between cat and bear. For several seconds after changing, the cat retains the bears tankiness. The problem is that constantly switching between the two and making sure you don't run out of your armor in cat form adds a bit of complexity.

[@tabunga4669]

@@KiaStout shew, I'm learning so I don't really need anymore complexity

[@Opposegaming]

Prot paladin is not harder! The massive silences with the shield make it a breeze. Just gotta stand on concentrate! And now with war within you get to get off for 4 seconds ! Their heals suck on beta but I’m sure blizzard will fix before release. Blood DK harder than paladin IMO

[@Defocus_]

exactly someone knows prot paladin is easy af, not even a hard class people making it out 2 be 😂

[@Rosarosa106]

If I were completely new to wow (literally just got to dragon flight on my resto Druid) is blood DK a good beginner tank? Love the lore and aesthetics

[@fight4yourright2]

Unfortunately imo, no. All of the tank classes are "easy" at a low level. So if your goal is to just push some dungeons and not go into mythic plus, play whatever you want. However, if you plan on improving at the game to the point where you're pushing somewhat difficult mythic+ imo blood is hard to play. Tanks like the bear have a high skill ceiling but also a low skill floor. You can make mistakes and not be punished hard. Blood DK can be punished extremely hard for missing one ability window. At the end of the day, play what you want to play the most. You can alaways learn. None of the tank classes are exceptionally diffiuclt in 99% of the content the casual player does. I just wanted to prepare you for the potential wall you can hit with blood DK

[@pallieterwow]

Still in doubt if I should go prot war or blood dk main in TWW

[@jonoxis]

Please do difficulty ranking for Melees next :) And also can anyone tell me how hard Protection Paladin is in comparison to Retribution, since I'm playing that right now?

[@jeankirchstein2552]

Not very I say it's about the same except you have to stand in your concecration all the time

[@MarcelianOnline]

Working on melee as we speak, prot pala is way more engaging and complex than ret!

[@seniram845]

@@MarcelianOnline looking forward to the Melee one, thanks!

[@seth3681]

Blood is the hardest tank for some healers to play, man I love watching those mana bars panic 😂

[@thepharmercy3139]

i'd always like to tank or heal but i just...idk, i got a M+ Title in DF but don't really guild (I'm deaf so don't VC) too much so a lot of the time my experience is with pugs and pugs are awaful

[@PHX214]

if you put blood in easiest then dh is right by it. only thing that seperates them is mob control. other than that is just fracture and soul cleave, no monitoring bloodshield, no monitoring bones, no monitoring runic power.

[@JBX5677JB]

I would say Warrior has an incredibly easy rotation and main button useage, but it is the hardest to succeed in like the >14 range because of the lack of utility. It can't displace mobs, it can't off-heal, no brez, weak self-sustain, weak raid buff and on and on and on. As mostly an M+ player, it is hard not to separate ease of play with success rate.

[@havtor007]

Weak self sustain? You do know warrior has good self sustain in season 4 right?

[@JBX5677JB]

@@havtor007 It is just inferior self sustain to Druid, DK, DH, and Pally, but yes, relatively good!

[@havtor007]

@@JBX5677JB Paladin has the worst self sustain of all the tanks warrior is the second worse. It is not the self sustain that is a problem. I am not saying warrior is not lacking something it is simply that self sustain is relative and it is wrong to claim that warrior has weak self sustain when a class you think has good self sustain is actually worse.

[@JBX5677JB]

@@havtor007 Are you talking DF or TWW? If we are talking DF, like your statement about prot warrior self sustain mentions, I 100% disagree with that statement. Word of Glory is substantially better than Impending victory IMO and procs substantially more frequently. I would take that trade in a second on my Prot Warrior. I am also not following your logic. You acknowledge this is relative, I agree, and also acknowledge it is second worse, which I also agree. Something being 5/6 is not relatively bad?

[@havtor007]

@@JBX5677JB Relative hps in nythic plus season 4 dragonflight warrior 107.7k paladin 87.5k This is based on actual player data. But that is only part of the equation. Would you lose impending victory and ignore pain for WoG being cast 1 time something like every 15seconds? The thing is that the self sustain is not bad relative to content. When even the worst self sustaining tank can do the content then so can the second worst.

[@MrD1min]

Im playing brewmaster since WoD, always been most difficult but most satisfying tank to play, in DF IMO brewmaster is most balanced and if played good most OP tank, for all seasons I've been almost unkillable in M+ and raids

[@L0rks]

Tanks for that :)

[@MarcelianOnline]

You bet!

[@vandji8792]

un-bear-able

[@Darkmatter833]

Think I’m going to have a Brew-skee

[@syxqid3818]

I would love to play tank again but its no fun since all dps can pull how they like and flame you if you aren't as fast as they want or if you dont take aggro after they pull... sometimes i wish it would be like the old days where dps just die if they pull 😢

[@wtfenc0reenix]

on higher keys they do.

[@syxqid3818]

@@wtfenc0reenix yea but first you need a grp who inv you for high keys ^^

[@PRIATRO]

Just started playing prot pally and I have found it pretty easy.

[@Dozu]

please do healers next!!

[@radzytaufek604]

the sacred flame dungeon kinda hard for certain tank. especially on the last room. as a blood dk it was easy to pull the priests or just grip everything. its kinda annoying with pug dps who agro the other pack making our life difficult

[@Arja021]

"I'm a strong, independent BDK! I don't need no healer!"

[@MarcelianOnline]

So you get it :D

[@Arja021]

@@MarcelianOnline You know it! As a healer, I'm learning to love BDK though they still stress me out. Now that I know what to watch for, it's cake!

[@madhudson1]

You're not one of those bdk I've been healing on the beta then. Every dungeon is a rollercoaster of emotions

[@mafabe313]

@@madhudson1 Pretty the same did my Healer friend says to me as i get him the Message i will be tanking in TWW probably with an BDK... "please stfu its horrible for my heart ... Binary Tanking.. Choose between 100% and Dead isnt fun" ... so now im curious wich one i will take .. Bear or Prot War >.

[@madhudson1]

@@mafabe313 yeah lol they go from 100 to 5% in a heartbeat

[@ChichiNaka]

Interesting that paladin is ranked on the more difficult side it's always felt like the most braindead to me but maybe I'm not playing at a high enough level for it to matter

[@Defocus_]

nah ur right its easy af and braindead, reason the position on the chart is questionable.

[@JayCrittu]

you said bdk using Heart Strike to heal but its Death strike :(

[@duckwings4927]

Hype!🙌

[@MarcelianOnline]

Looking for that prot pally love Duck? :D

[@duckwings4927]

@@MarcelianOnline No doubt. So looking forward to enjoy M+ again and playing prot paladin 😎

[@criticalglitch2384]

Still want to know what tank is the most fun to play

[@MygoMai80]

Brewmaster, that made me laugh :D Yay.. Prot Warrior FTW :D

[@pglove9554]

I like these videos for the opinion talk. Just watched 5 tank ranking vids..everyone is different.

[@Uncle19]

Flame you are such a great speaker. We’re lucky some corporate entity didn’t pay you 6 figures and you got to do this instead.

[@MarcelianOnline]

Wow! WOW! This is an incredible compliment, thank you dude

[@SamCastaneda87]

I don't think I can agree on Brewmaster being hard anymore, it used to have the most difficult rotation but that has been simplified and things like keeping stagger and shuffle up happens automatically while doing your normal rotation.. You do have Celestial Brew but otherwise don't really have many defensive CDs to manage, large hits automatically get mittigated with Ox Stance and even have Elixir of Determination now. I guess you can fall over if you are unable to even follow a basic rotation properly but that's too low of a bar now to consider it "difficult". As I see it as long as you do the basic rotation correctly you don't even need to be proactive with your mittigaiton, if you didn't know a large hit was coming you automatically mittigate it anyways and you just Purify after (reactively),. A Paladin for example needs to konw the big hit is coming and proactively use a defensive for each one or gets one-shot, that on top of also having conscecration buff and shield of the righteous up, you need all 3 things together to take a big hit.

[@GHIBaal]

HYPED FOR TWW

[@wtfenc0reenix]

i play bdk and prot warrior for so many years since legion and to compare both i have to say thats prot warrior the easierst tank from both. hes not so easy like guardian but tbh... bear is boring af. Like you already said prot warrior has a high defense naturally and doesnt need much then high uptime of shieldblock. bdk on other side need need most of the time one cd to survive certain pulls. for example 10+ fortified keys with not high end gear maybe on actually content 505-510the prot warrior can easily 2-3 groups with just shield block and ignore pain, but the bdk will die without one active cd. bloodshield is great but it doesnt prevent you from one shottet or get globaled. on warrior you cant be globaled with active shieldblock. On Caster dmg both has some good defense like ams, spell reflect or spell block, but with tww get warrior +5% reduced magic dmg and this helps a lot.

[@adam723]

should be Death Strike 1:24

[@MarcelianOnline]

True, Heart Strike seems to have gripped by heart ironically xD

[@murrloc1859]

Sigils what sigils ?? They suck now , it’s over till season 3 maybe 2

[@benjiebrowning8247]

Let’s go

[@MarcelianOnline]

Enjoy :D

[@Shosara]

Curious how opinions on this can differ so strongly, apart from druid i would pretty much flip this list on its head. Monk is so easy to play in my opinion whereas DK requires you to know the encounter and when to pool runic power to be able to heal back up as well as be way more liberate with your cooldows, which is not intuitive coming from any other tank.

[@MrToastyTank]

I mean, the only part that I disagree with is the placing of the paladin and the demon hunter.

[@Truvidien]

Where would you put them?

[@MrToastyTank]

@RisingLight99 I just have them swap spaces. I think that a clicker can play a paladin, but it's harder for a clicker to play a Demon Hunter in my opinion, and I think that adds a level of difficulty in and of itself.

[@havtor007]

​@@MrToastyTank You underestimate the power of clickers look at yumytv couching a clicker in shadowlands to see how much.

[@lucasstegmann6469]

⁠​⁠@@MrToastyTank The skill ceiling of prot pally is arguably the highest of all tanks if you consider maximizing avengers shield interrupts from Divine Resonance and Random Proccs. Mouseover-interrupting spells in big pulls with an on-gcd ability that does not fuel your active mitigation feedback loop is tricky to master. That means the decision making involved when ur being battered and need to make the best of your Avengers shield proccs is a LOT of mental load for the paladin, especially if you consider that Pally has NO real passive tankyness in the way that some of the other tanks have and is constantly juggling defensives while also needing to be healed a fair amount. Globals are tight and costly. I pug all tanks to around 3.3 3.4k ish each season and pally tank is, in my opinion, definitely the hardest tank to master.

[@MrToastyTank]

@lucasstegmann6469 I'm not saying that you're wrong, but you don't have to play like your a Demi-god, super God, eldritch being to be a tank. You can get in the door as a protection paladin being a clicker, knowing 25% of how you're supposed to play the class.

[@fattymatty9319]

Huh…. I would have thought stagger would make brew new player friendly, learn something new everyday. Just a fun idea, go alphabetically like you do when inside the expansion you’re talking about, and reverse alphabetically for when you’re talking about an expansion we’re not currently in, small mixup for us easy concept to stick to for you, maybe? Haha

[@tordb]

I've played Brewmaster since MOP. They've gotten progressively worse through each expansion. It's like a fire mage being a tank in TWW.

[@Robula]

7:40 I heard French noises?

[@bakvaz]

been playing prot pally for 12 years. Pretty easy tank.

[@forkmasterderp919]

The tank rotation sure, but getting the full value out of your entire utility kit is not

[@bakvaz]

@@forkmasterderp919does take skill and awareness. Certainly not just blindly smashing buttons. But it's not hard.

[@mynameisandycook1]

You guys going to revisit this after Blizzard just shit on every single tank (except Monks) today?

[@davidpeat184]

Does anyone casual tank? I’m casual as fuck.. as in like a few dungeons then I’m done for a day or more🤣 want to tank but always put off by the knowledge requirement… doesn’t seem very casual friendly from an outside perspective

[@Drakshl]

Probably up to 8s (which is all the key levels you need to get gear) you can w key your way through most dungeons pulling 1-2 packs at a time and learning the critical lessons as you go. If you wanted to push into harder keys then the knowledge burden is pretty high but at a low level it's not much harder

[@Melethrion]

as far as df goes, playing prot warr compares to playing prot pal like having to lace up your shoes compares to velcro and i doubt that's going to vary much in tww, so, first video i find weirdly off. prot pal is so straight forward, you can literally just place buttons according to their prio from left to right on your bars and use whatever is off cd in that order... only thing to keep an eye on would indeed be the shield for active mitigation and to not get hit in the back... which only the bear doesn't have to do as meticulously really. how tf is prot pal landing on "hard" -.- like, duuuuude :P i mean, you even have a 1 min cd get-me-all-the-aggro-of-everything-rn button as pal. T.T and then its just spamming aoe procs to deal a bazillion dps

[@EssenceOfTrance]

Exactly. Prot pally is piss easy, bdk is quite hard in higher keys.

[@Jay-407]

Y’all making a vid for everything

[@coatsman5471]

My problem with these videos is that they mislead new players by summarising tanks based on "difficulty" without delving into why some tanks are deemed viable than others. While the guide's theme might be focusing on "easiest to pick up," you didn't state that. In higher keys, there's a vast difference in the quality and difficulty of tanks, and most groups will notice this within the first two pulls. Playing classes like Blood DK and Prot Warrior at higher keys requires a fundamental understanding of your CDs and abilities, not just "spamming abilities and building and spending runic power". Videos like this feel poorly structured and just seem to be hastily put together to hit the 10-minute mark for YT revenue admist the expansion hype.

[@jwhitefoot1976]

The answer is bear. It’s been bear since Wrath when you could tank ICC with a 1-button macro. It will always be bear.

[@RRckr910]

As a brew main (maybe biased), I'd say the opposite. Brew is easiest to play. BDK is hardest in higher keys. Stagger is just too OP

[@shadowrangedking]

Where are the healers my dude?! :C

[@MarcelianOnline]

Working on it!

[@itsyaboiherman]

im a noob trying all the tanks, to me, i feel prot pally is the easiest, you just throw hammers lol

[@mjohn3126]

Blood Dk with purgatory is just tanking on easy mode. Just keep Bone Shield charges up, heart strike when your heath isn’t low, and death strike when it gets low

[@Kai-10-]

Indeed

[@MarcelianOnline]

Yes sir, glad you agree :D

[@Strezleki]

Ahh I was so sure I’d be first lol

[@MarcelianOnline]

Close enough :P

[@EssenceOfTrance]

This tier list is a joke. Prot pally is literally spam your rotational skills on cooldown. How is that harder than a spec where you need to track runic power, bone shield charges and runes? I mained prot pally in shadowlands and compared to BDK it's literally a cake walk. Brew is also not that hard. BDK is the hardest cause you need to track a lot more resources and use your defensives properly to not get globaled. Your tier lists are usually a lot better.

[@charlesnally4126]

First ??👀👀

[@MarcelianOnline]

Yes you are!

[@samward1317]

Paladin, Warrior and Druid have essentially the same rotation with just the name of the spells being changed. It's completely crazy to say Druid is S tier easy and Paladin is 2nd hardest. Consecration - Swipe/Raze Judgement - Mangle Blessed Hammer - Thrash Shield Of The Righteous - Ironfur Word Of Glory - Frenzied Regeneration You can literally transpose these keybinds between the 2 specs and congratulations you already know how to play the class. The only additional difficulty of Paladin is remembering to stand inside consecration.

[@_Zir]

bro is so wrong.

[@FrostyWoW]

easy tanks... all of them. lol

[@MarcelianOnline]

I mean...... :)

[@Maximo-Maximus]

For real, hardest part about tanking is mentally taking all the blame the dps throw at you for wiping when they didn’t cc/interrupt

[@GURKS35]

Lol that would actualy be blaming the healer​@@Maximo-Maximus

[@ryanrenshaw8572]

Try saying that with arthritis - some are easier than others

[@altum5114]

In my eyes Paladin is the hardest Tank. Its easy to learn but hard to Master! A Real good Paladin, can off heal. Use all his Utility at the right time (Ring of Freedom, Sac, Meele Bubble) + doing good pulls & not die.

[@Defocus_]

paladin is by far the easiest tank to play in the game. 😂

[@havtor007]

Doubt it.

[@Nyeusi]

Wrong

[@Defocus_]

@@Nyeusi skill issue

[@Defocus_]

@@havtor007 skill issue

[@wtfenc0reenix]

absolutly not. but on low keys, yes.